"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing.

There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life. If you've got a family and you're in the early days of a company, I can't imagine how one could do it. It's pretty much an eighteen-hour day job, seven days a week, for a while.

You may think that you are attracted to the entrepreneur lifestyle for the money.. but history has proven that it is so much more. The most successful entrepreneurs of our day are not the fat guys in BMW’s that you see at the red light, in heated discussion with their blackberry.. Successful entrepreneurs have learned to get their work week done in 5-10 hours so they can enjoy their success.

The successful entrepreneur spends more time with family, pursuing hobbies, sports, self-improvement and travel. You will find them learning new languages, maybe even creating art or music, traveling and spending unhurried time with the kids and spouse. They constantly seek to improve self, and are typically fitness buffs and often competitive in at least one sport.

Last July, I wrote about the increasing emphasis in B2B marketing on justifying marketing investments, and the drivers behind this shift. Marketing Accountability and Return-on-Marketing-Investment (ROMI) are part of the new business mantra.

Research shows that over 85-90% of companies now recognize Marketing Performance Measurement as a significant priority. And yet less than 10-15% of these companies have any comprehensive process in place to measure marketing performance or ROMI.

Growth is a modern phenomenon. Before the 18th century, plundering was the best way to grow and economy was a zero sum game. This is no more the case, at least in Europe, since the late 18th century. Growth had thus appeared before the theory of growth: the first economists observed this new reality and they did not invent it. This scientific behavior would change in the 19th century with socialism and later on with Keynes as they try to invent a better economy instead of observing the existing economy.

Among the initial observers, Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say have no doubt, been the actual founders of the free market economy. Both are still relevant.

Adam Smith observed why free trade, the division of labor and a fair State based on law and order, led to prosperity for the many: when these basic principles are forgotten, growth does not emerge and depressions occur. JB Say was not to describe the channels towards growth as Smith did, but its very engine: how and why does it start at all? Thus, he devised the concept of entrepreneurship.

Michael Alexander sent along this excerpt from Steven Johnson’s book, “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

Scientists and animal lovers had long observed that as life gets bigger, it slows down. Flies live for hours or days; elephants live for half-centuries. The hearts of birds and small mammals pump blood much faster than those of giraffes and blue whales.

But the relationship between size and speed didn’t seem to be a linear one. A horse might be five hundred times heavier than a rabbit, yet its pulse certainly wasn’t five hundred times slower than the rabbit’s.   After a formidable series of measurements in his Davis lab, [Swiss scientist Max] Kleiber discovered that this scaling phenomenon stuck to an unvarying mathematical script called ‘negative quarter-power scaling.’

If you plotted mass versus metabolism on a logarithmic grid, the result was a perfectly straight line that led from rats and pigeons all the way up to bulls and hippopotami. …  The more species Kleiber and his peers analyzed, the clearer the equation became: metabolism scales to mass to the negative quarter power….

Most of the robotic arms now in use by some amputees are of limited practicality; they have only two to three degrees of freedom, allowing the user to make a single movement at a time. And they are controlled with conscious effort, meaning the user can do little else while moving the limb.

A new generation of much more sophisticated and lifelike prosthetic arms, sponsored by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), may be available within the next five to 10 years. Two different prototypes that move with the dexterity of a natural limb and can theoretically be controlled just as intuitively--with electrical signals recorded directly from the brain--are now beginning human tests.

I’m at Newark Airport waiting for my plane to take me to Quebec for the Quebec City Conference where I’m being interviewed at the end of the day by Rob Cox of Reuters Breakingviews.  Yesterday Rob and I had a short call so he could get to know me a little better.

As he was probing me about Foundry Group and what makes us tick, we started talking about what we refer to as “deeply held beliefs.”  In my first company (Feld Technologies) we referred to these as “precepts” As we were talking through them, I realized that they defined us, and how we work, extremely well.

NAUCC 2010 from Max Schulze on Vimeo.

Video link. This footage prepared for the North American Unicycling Championships and Convention contains some pretty unbelievable footage, including jumping over a picnic table, up a flight of 7 stairs in one hop, and the you-gotta-see-it-to believe-it "maxwhip." Also some amazing Kris Holm vids here and here.

KANSAS CITY, MO--(Marketwire - October 27, 2010) - The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation today announced the designation of three universities -- Carnegie Mellon University, University of Missouri System and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- as "Kauffman Commercialization Leaders." The award recognizes the selected universities for their creative approaches to help to accelerate the process of bringing student and faculty innovations to market. The Foundation is awarding each university a $100,000 grant for their selected programs or initiatives.

"These universities exhibit a strong commitment to bringing the innovations developed on campuses into the commercial marketplace, which benefits society and ultimately enhances economic growth," said Carl J. Schramm, Kauffman Foundation president and CEO. "We are very pleased to recognize and support their efforts."

Does your business have an innovative idea that could be commercialized for use by the federal government? If so, good news: The SBA recently announced that its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program will undergo some improvements to make it more “entrepreneur-friendly” and make it easier for small businesses to innovate and create new jobs.

The SBIR program is a three-phase award system in which small businesses compete to propose innovative ideas that have high commercialization potential and can be used by federal agencies. Funded by a set-aside from external research budgets of 11 participating agencies, the program’s goals are to encourage innovation, enhance private-sector commercialization of innovation, and get more women and minority entrepreneurs involved in technology innovation.

VB: What did you learn?

LC: Each time there is a different feel. This year it is split. The bigger companies are a bit grim about the economy situation. The teeny ones are just like startups. They are super-optimistic, super excited. They can only think about the next step up and don’t care what’s going on with the economy. We got a real cross-section of what is really going on in the country with a Silicon Valley flavor, which means great optimism.

VB: Compared to past years?

LC: It’s a little bit different. Last year, there was some uncertainty. This year, the Intel and Applied Materials of the world are uncertain. Smaller companies like Juniper Networks are hiring. So are the solar companies. I find it to be very industry-specific. It’s a different mosaic this year.

If there are any men left who still believe that women are the weaker sex, it is long past time for them to think again. With respect to that most essential proof of robustness—the power to stay alive—women are tougher than men from birth through to extreme old age. The average man may run a 100-meter race faster than the average woman and lift heavier weights. But nowadays women outlive men by about five to six years. By age 85 there are roughly six women to every four men. At age 100 the ratio is more than two to one. And by age 122—the current world record for human longevity—the score stands at one-nil in favor of women.

They are one of the biggest generations in American history, and they are certainly the best educated. But for Generation Y -- a group of young people some 70 million strong between the ages of 15 and 30 -- the future seems anything but bright.

With a national unemployment rate of 9.6%, many of them cannot find jobs. Some have had to move back home with their parents; others are scraping by with low-level work that is barely enough to pay back the four and five figure loans they took out for college. "It's not looking particularly good for Gen Y," says Matthew Bidwell, a Wharton management professor. "And I don't think it's going to go away by the next graduation season in May. A lot of forecasts are for a slow and hesitant recovery. We're not going back to 2007 any time soon."

The European Union is up and running with its 2020 Strategy that self-imposes numerous key targets to be achieved through initiatives, (also referred to as flagships), in order to revive the European economy. A critical flagship in this regard is the "Innovation Union" that aims to make of Europe a centre of innovation, as this will reflect in solutions to tackle major societal challenges, such as climate change, energy and resource scarcity, health and ageing, which are becoming more urgent.

This article is an excerpt from the InFocus issue, Strengthen Your Local Economy through Economic Gardening, by Christine Hamilton-Pennell, published by ICMA.

Economic gardening is an entrepreneurial approach to economic development that seeks to grow the local economy from within. Its premise is that local entrepreneurs create the companies that bring new wealth and economic growth to a region in the form of jobs, increased revenues, and a vibrant local business sector. Economic gardening seeks to focus on growing and nurturing local businesses rather than hunting for “big game” outside the area.

Preparing a strategy for an economic gardening program can be complicated-there are many elements that must be developed first, taking into consideration unique community needs and available resources. Here are the seven steps to developing an implementation strategy for your economic gardening program to succeed.

Over the last month I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to both guest lecture in University entrepreneurship courses and keynote and Entrepreneurship Conference at Queens College.  I’m also fortunate in that The MouseDriver Chronicles continues to serve as an inspiring story for students (and others) around the world who dream of someday becoming entrepreneurs.  You know your book has staying power when hundreds of Universities are using the book and numerous  professors have structured their entire syllabus around chapters of the book.  Seriously.  I’ve counted three so far.  Now that’s cool.  And a little bit scary.

And over the last month, I’ve found myself frequently passing along the same advice to students that I did back in 1999 when Kyle and I first took MouseDriver from a classroom at Wharton to the shelves of WalMart.  Granted, advice is just advice and every situation, every idea, every individual is completely different.  But I stand behind the points below, which I view as absolutely timeless if you’re starting a company while in school.

1. Take advantage of school resources:  Never in your life will you have access to so many different resources that can help you validate your idea.  Whether its research databases, experienced professors, wicked smart classmates, or simply the time and opportunity to work on different facets of your idea, these resources are an incredible asset and you should use to validate, refine and test your ideas.  Think of the classroom as one giant research lab in which you can test different hypothesis and theories.

Venture capital funding in the Golden State hit a five quarter low in Q3 2010. Is California and its epicenter of innovation activity, Silicon Valley, losing their grip? It’s become a sport to speculate about the end of the venture capital asset class and in particular, become fun for the punditry to predict the demise of Silicon Valley and/or opine on where the next Silicon Valley is going to be.

So here’s some data for you so you can be the judge.

Why do leaders fail? They make bad decisions. And in some cases they compound bad decision upon bad decision. The truth is that even leaders who don’t fail make bad decisions from time-to-time. You cannot separate leadership from decisioning, for like it or not, they are inexorably linked. Put simply, the outcome of a leader’s decisions can, and usually will, make or break them. Those leaders who avoid making decisions solely for fear of making a bad decision, or conversely those that make decisions just for the sake of making a decision will likely not last long. The fact of the matter is that senior executives who rise to the C-suite do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions. However while it may take years of solid decision making to reach the boardroom, it often times only takes one bad decision to fall from the ivory tower. As much as you may wish it wasn’t so, as a CEO you’re really only as good as your last decision.

What's your idea of the best place in which to live?

Many people would probably answer that palm trees and a gleaming beach would be a good start to their idea of earthly paradise. But in real life, the country which scores best on a whole range of economic and quality-of-life issues is a good deal colder.

It's Finland.

That's what the 2009 Prosperity Index issued by the British-based think tank the Legatum Institute finds.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Worldwide, residents of Latin America are the most likely to see government as a liability rather than as an asset to starting a business. Across 20 Latin American countries Gallup surveyed between 2008 and 2010, a median of 66% of residents say their governments do not make permits and paperwork easy enough for those who want to start a business. Residents in sub-Saharan African countries are next most likely to see their governments this way: a median of 50% say this.